The claimant’s details have been changed but this is indeed a true case
Annemarie Ellis-Percival acted for a client who was injured when she caught the edge of her foot on a raised manhole cover in a road near her local market. The road in question was in an extremely poor state of repair with many raised defects and differences in level and posed a danger to pedestrians.
Unfortunately our client caught her foot on one of the differences in levels and fell to the ground, hitting her knee on the raised manhole cover. Because of the sharp edge of the manhole cover her knee was badly cut and she had to be taken by ambulance to the Emergency Department at a local hospital where she had to undergo surgery to repair the wound. She was incapacitated for some months after the accident and could not fully walk due to the injury to her knee.
It had been dark at the time of the accident and our client was not quite sure what had caused her to trip and she therefore returned the following day to take photographs of what had caused her to trip.
Shortly after this period another site inspection took place between our client and an Inspector from the local Council whereby our client pointed out the exact defect which had caused her accident.
With this information the Council were able to investigate as to whether they were liable for the defect and they then returned with a denial on liability stating that they had a reasonable system of inspection and maintenance in place. However, after some research into this, it was discovered that in fact their inspection and maintenance regime was not up to standard and they had failed in their duty. After this was pointed out to them, they altered their stance on liability and agreed to deal with the claim.
Fortunately our client was able to return to work a few months after the accident on light duties and this meant that she did not lose any earnings because of the accident. However, friends and family did provide her with much help and assistance following the accident and she also had various other miscellaneous expenses due to the accident such as travel expenses and medication.
In the end our client received compensation for her personal injury of £5,000.